


Asking for Help

by FawnoftheWoods



Series: Where the Hitter Is [6]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Team as Family, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 15:22:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13504305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FawnoftheWoods/pseuds/FawnoftheWoods
Summary: Eliot has a client for them.  He just has to figure out how to get Nate interested in them.





	Asking for Help

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike my previous stories, this doesn't go through the whole episode. I thought of something different here.

Nate’s last job involved a small army. Eliot would like a slightly less dangerous mission for a change.  He’s given the chance when Willie called him up on the old contact info.

When Willie told him the story, he felt his blood burn.  Aimee was the one who got away.  The one he had betrayed.  She never knew he hadn’t seen the sun for 2 months when his promised return date came and went..  She never knew that he was unconscious for nearly 2 weeks after he’d made his escape.  She never knew that her face was what he focused on as the nights, and the beatings, wore on.  And she was never going to know. 

He wasn’t right for her.  He was a hitter. She needed a husband.    

But now she needed a hitter, and he still owed her and her father.

Horses were family to anyone from that area.  The horses’ death burned him to the core almost as bad as the betrayal he remembered.  Nate had to take the case.

It wasn’t until he was in front of Nate that he realized he was asking for help.  That Nate might turn him down.  He couldn’t chance that.

“Nate, I think I’ve found a client for us.”

He had nothing to offer Nate to take this job.  He wasn’t an innocent, like the people Nate helped and he didn’t have anything Nate wanted.  Nate cared little for money and seemed halfway to passive suicide anyway.  

No, if he wanted Nate’s help, it had to be because Willie needed it.

“It’s a family business against a hedge fund owner.  The man is going to lose his business.”

Nate had no problem agreeing to meet the man with Eliot.  All during the meeting, he had to hold his emotions in a tight rein.   He kept interrupting Willie with more facts.  He felt like he had to give Nate all the information he could.  

When Willie talked about how horses scream, he nearly lost it.  He almost let himself ask Nate to help.  Luckily Willie kept talking and Nate wasn’t looking at him.

Willie had probably convinced Nate pretty good, too.

Then Aimee walked in.

“ _ You called him?!? _ ”

“ _ Eight years, no phone calls, no letters, you don't earn a homecoming parade. _ ”

God, her tone made something hurt, like always.  Even worse, he could see Nate putting two and two together.  He kept his face, his tone as light as possible.  A homecoming parade?  Perhaps if he thought he could come home.  

Diverting conversation to her husband had been a desperate attempt to change the subject off him, but instead it hurt more.  He never thought the man would leave her.  The jackass was getting a visit from him when he could get away from the crew long enough.

Worse, Nate had finished adding twos to get four.  He brushed it off as a simple thing on his side, part of his non-hitter past.  He wasn’t sure how much Nate guessed, but when Nate started backing out, he knew he couldn’t let that happen.

If it meant he wasn’t involved with Aimee, then fine.  He already let her down, not like he had the right to say anything anyway.

He raised his left hand, “I wanna help Willie. Scout’s honor.”

Nate looked at him in a way that told him, he hadn’t fooled Nate

“Wrong hand.”

000

The smile on Willie’s face, on Aimee’s face, was worth all the difficulty.  Even worth owing Nate a favor.  Not that he minded owing Nate.  Nate was an okay guy to owe.    Besides, his requests were usually a lot of fun.

Hearing Aimee say she was wrong felt good.  Not that she was wrong, but that she was finally okay enough to say it.  She was healing.

But if she thought the crew were his family, she was crazy.  He didn’t have a family.  

Still, he would miss Aimee.

Because he didn’t have a family.

Even if he wanted one.

000

Four years later:

“He’s one of the guys that kept me from falling all the way down.  And now I’m asking the other guy to understand why I’m gonna help him.”

**Author's Note:**

> The end quote is from Season 5, The French Connection


End file.
